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As the health care world waits for a viable COVID-19
vaccine, The Atlantic has called attention to a hitch in the process that could
cause problems for introducing a safe vaccine. Simply put, vaccine developers
are running out of monkeys to use for their final efficacy and safety testing.
Rhesus monkeys have “completely disappeared,” one scientist
says. According to The Atlantic, the reason for the shortages are threefold: “First,
COVID-19 has created extraordinary demand for monkeys. Second, this coincided
with a massive drop in supply from China, which provided 60 percent of the
nearly 35,000 monkeys imported to the U.S. last year and which shut off exports
after COVID-19 hit.
“And third, these pandemic-related events are exacerbating
preexisting monkey shortfalls.”
SOURCE: The
Atlantic August 31, 2020